From Competence To
Excellence

Wilf Jarvis on the
Characteristics of Outstanding Managers

How can competent managers become
excellent leaders? Are leaders born or made? Do most of us have potential which, if
released, shaped and nurtured, could transform us into outstanding leaders?

For more than 50 years Wilfred
Jarvis, an Australian behavioral scientist, has been seeking evidence to help him
answer such questions. He believes he has identified many universal truths about
leadership, applicable to all societies, with people from all occupations and professions
and in every kind of organization. This information was used by him to establish the
relationships and techniques of Four Quadrant Leadership. He teaches those principles and
practices in many countries around the world.

Research evidence gathered by Jarvis shows that many
managers are not regarded as leaders by the people who report to them. Reflecting on these
facts he says, "That information stimulates my research for the personal and
professional credentials which distinguish true leaders from normal managers,
I add the qualification 'true' because the label 'leader' is commonly awarded to anybody
who has a position of power."

"One outstanding trait of true leaders is their
readiness to accept and deal with the truth even when it includes criticisms of their own
decisions and actions. This habit guarantees them a very valuable advantage. Their people
tell them the truth because they have learned that honesty is really the best
policy."

"I have hundreds of anecdotes from employees who
suffered penalties for bringing unpleasant tidings to powerful people in their
organizations," says Jarvis. "Sometimes I have met a similar fate as a
consultant, after reporting unattractive survey results to senior executives who preferred
blissful ignorance to confrontations with uncomfortable facts."

Jarvis has studied hundreds of organizations. These
experiences have led him to conclude that in normal organizations, people's ascent to
great status and power is primarily determined by their technical skills, their separate
achievements and their readiness to mimic the behavior of those who outrank them. They are
not required to demonstrate proficiency in the techniques and relationships of effective
leadership before being promoted.

He says there are numerous factors which negatively
affect a normal manager's endeavors to achieve excellence in leadership. He believes that
the following are particularly important:

The widespread obsession with the immediate bottom
line. A week is now a long time in both politics and business. Knowing that they will be
judged by the joys or calamities listed in tomorrow's print-out, countless executives have
no incentive to strive to become leaders. Measurable payoffs for leadership skills may be
months or years away. Organizational chiefs who cultivate colonies of short-sighted
managers do not nurture far-sighted leaders.

Changes in social and organizational values have
persuaded ever greater numbers of executives to view employees primarily as commodities in
a company's inventory. These trends are powerfully illustrated in new management
vocabularies. People have become human resources. We use glib jargon about redundancies,
retrenchments, downsizing, rightsizing, restructuring, shedding labor, merging, takeovers
and many other modern management customs to disguise the unwelcome fact that human beings
are being personally affected by our decisions and actions. When people are perceived as
things, leaders are not required. Things are best controlled by engineers, accountants,
auditors, administrators and electronic data processors. Only people need leaders.

People born during the last 30 years have been far
more difficult to manage and lead than earlier generations of employees. Problems caused
by their changed attitudes to work, authority, rights and obligations, and careers have
generated floods of temporary panaceas in countless normal organizations.

These epidemics of fads, fashions and 'flavors of the
month' have been particularly virulent in the Western world. Hosts of new gimmicks have
appeared and vanished, leaving their victims more cynical and less committed, with
diminishing morale and loyalty.

In every organization, each manager's record in managing
things is carefully monitored. Failure in this responsibility usually brings serious
penalties. But few companies have reliable procedures for evaluating a manager's skills in
leading people.

But Jarvis has been delighted to find that many
contemporary managers are superb leaders. Their people willingly form strong teams around
them, inspired to work together in expressing common values and questing towards cherished
goals which cannot be achieved unless they cooperate persistently with each other and
their leaders.

Convinced that the establishment and maintenance of
substantial, enduring values and leadership practices in organizations depend mostly on
the CEO and senior executives, he has concluded that no enduring progress can be achieved
in reducing chronic organizational problems and emphasizing leadership unless people at
the top begin the revolution by altering their own behavior, before they ask subordinates
to alter theirs.

He says, "Tribal elders shape and reinforce ethos.
By their own actions they set the standards and priorities for all employees."

Jarvis designed the system he calls Four
Quadrant Leadership after almost four decades of research. During the
several decades since he left the academic world he has had constant opportunity to evaluate the benefits
gained by organizations whose CEOs and senior executives establish Four Quadrant
Leadership as a theme in their ethos.

He comments, "Four Quadrant Leadership
clearly specifies the credentials of effective leaders and the nature of the constant
relationships they must establish and maintain with the people under their control. It
requires leaders to be skilled in evaluating their people's productive skills and
constructive energies for each task, and in using that information when determining the
levels of authority and responsibility they will give them."

Many beneficial improvements are soon obvious in all
work groups where Four Quadrant Leadership is systematically practiced. Wilf's
research has shown that these include:

More precise definitions of task and authorities

Marked improvements in relationships

Higher levels of trust and cooperation

Increased speed and accuracy in communications

Reductions in inter-personal and inter-functional
conflicts

Stronger work teams

Measurable gains in productivity, quality and profits

Four Quadrant Leadership is based on timeless
unchanging truths which are as relevant now as in any past era. When these principles are
consistently applied, competent managers can become excellent leaders.